(Photo: Oliver Rich / Flickr)Each year, millions of Americans are forced to have their names associated with devastating hurricanes and tropical storms, thanks to the World Meteorological Organization’s hurricane and tropical storm naming system.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, and permanently tarnished the name “Katrina.”

While I have never raised the issue with my good friend Katrina Vanden Heuvel, I have to assume she was not pleased.

Back in 1992, Hurricane Andrew ripped through Florida and the Gulf Coast, causing $26.5 billion in damage.

My senior writer Andrew Campbell is very smart and talented, and some say he’s even a nice guy.

Why should he be smeared like this by the World Meteorological Organization?

And just last year, over 98,000 Americans sat helplessly as Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, and forever changed what people think of when they hear the name “Sandy.”

I know at least a half a dozen people named Sandy, and I have never thought of any of them as mass killers.

To make matters worse, as climate change and global warming continue to wreak havoc on Planet Earth, there will be more and more hurricanes and tropical storms, and more people will be force to have the meanings of their names forever changed.

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This year alone, there are 18 predicted named storms, nine of which are hurricanes, and four of which are predicted to be major.

Isn’t it time we changed the way we name these devastating acts of nature, and stopped tarnishing the names of innocent Americans?

One way we could do that is by naming future deadly hurricanes and devastating tropical storms after the politicians in Washington who continue to deny that climate change and global warming are the greatest threats our planet has ever faced.

Then there’s Senator Michelle Bachmann, who in April of 2009 confidently said that, “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful, but there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas… It is a harmless gas.”

And just a month later, in May of 2009, Bachmann remarked that, “the science indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is also onboard the climate change denial bus. In September of 2011, the former Republican presidential hopeful said that, “I mean, it — I mean — and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell.”

Finally there’s Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe, who might be the worst climate-change denier of them all.

In March of 2010, Inhofe said that, “this 97% [of climate scientists accepting human-caused global warming], that doesn’t mean anything. I named literally thousands of scientists on the floor…and these were top people.”

Senator Inhofe has even said that, “C02 does not cause catastrophic disasters; actually it would be beneficial to our environment and our economy.”

So what would it look like if Marco Rubio, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and James Inhofe were all the names of hurricanes?

It’s time to stop naming devastating storms after innocent, everyday Americans, and start naming them after those who are perpetuating the climate-change denial big lie that’s threatening the survival of the only planet we can call home.

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